Jan. 2--Amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, local banks provided some of the best local returns available to investors.

Owners of Capitol Federal Financial not only avoided the stock market's meltdown, they also pocketed a 47 percent gain in 2008. UMB Financial Corp. delivered a 28 percent gain for its stockholders.

That's phenomenal performance, given the damage taken by industry goliaths such as JPMorgan Chase & Co., down 28 percent; Bank of America Corp., down 66 percent; and Citigroup Inc., off 77 percent. Never mind the banks that failed or were rescued through mergers guided by regulators.

By that yardstick, investors also can crow about the 2.9 percent gain in their Commerce Bancshares Inc. stock and 2.4 percent gain in NASB Financial Inc. shares.

These four local bank stocks accounted for half the eight area stocks to post higher prices at year end. Factor in dividends and investors fared even better. For Cap Fed owners, dividends boosted 2008 returns to 55 percent.

The key was safe, traditional banking.

"Capitol Federal has really stuck to their knitting. They didn't stray away from what their strengths were, and that was writing traditional mortgage loans in their market area," said Brad Milsaps, an analyst at Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP in Atlanta.

Topeka-based Cap Fed missed fast-growing housing markets in California, Florida, Las Vegas and Arizona, as well as their devastating collapses.

"Nothing's certain, but you can go to sleep at night and not have to worry about losing 50, 60 or 70 percent of your value," Milsaps said of the stock.

The top local stock, however, was American Italian Pasta Co. whose shares tripled in value after losing 20 percent in 2007.

Still, shareholders had suffered through a grueling stretch in which financial statements were tossed out the window, top executives were prosecuted and shares fell off the New York Stock Exchange for two years of exile on the Pink Sheets. Shares recently gained a listing on the Nasdaq market.

American Italian's outlook has improved as tight consumer budgets send more shoppers to the pasta aisle instead of the meat counter.

The fall in durum wheat prices also will help future earnings, as the company will need until spring to work off its higher-cost inventories, analyst William Chappell at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey wrote in a Dec. 12 report.

Another local leader this year has been recession-resistant Compass Minerals International Inc., whose shares surged 43 percent last year.